Bank Maryland

The president and chief executive of Bank Maryland Corp., E. Neil Jacobs, has resigned from the Towson-based banking company after a year at the helm.Hildebert F. Criste, chairman of Bank Maryland, will act as interim president and chief executive while the company searches for a replacement, Theresa D. Livesey, the company's chief financial officer, said yesterday.Mr. Jacobs, 53, joined Bank Maryland last April after leaving Equitable Bancorporation during its merger with MNC Financial Inc.Mr.

Henry S. Baker Jr., a retired banker and community leader, died Saturday from complications of a tumor at Keswick Multi-Care Center. The longtime Monkton resident was 86. The son of Henry S. Baker Sr., treasurer of the Johns Hopkins University, and Frances Innes Robinson, a registered nurse who worked for Dr. Howard A. Kelly, a founder of Johns Hopkins Hospital, Henry Scott Baker Jr. was born in Baltimore and raised on St. Georges Road in Roland...

Bank Maryland Corp., a Towson-based bank-holding company, eked out a $8,806 profit, 0.44 of 1 cent per share, during the fourth quarter. However, it was an improvement over the 1989 fourth quarter when the company had a $1.4 million loss, or 74 cents a share.For the year, the company had a loss of $11 million, or $5.40 a share, an eight-fold increase in red ink over 1989 when the company lost $1.3 billion, or 70 cents a share.Bank Maryland is the parent company of Bank of Maryland, which has 13 branches in the state and had total assets of $218.

Benny C. Walker of Fallston was appointed recently to the board of directors of Chesapeake Bank of Maryland. Walker, a principal at Weyrich, Cronin & Sorra Chartered, Certified Public Accountants in Bel Air has extensive experience in financial and management advisory services, tax planning, compliance and audit. Benny C. Walker is also the treasurer of the Albert P. Close Foundation, is on the board of the Community Foundation of Harford County and was appointed by Harford County Executive David Craig to the Harford County Economic Development Advisory Board.

Mason-Dixon Bancshares Corp. said yesterday that it has signed a letter of intent to acquire Bank Maryland Corp. of Towson.Mason-Dixon, parent of Carroll County Bank and Trust Co., will pay $11.8 million in cash and give Bank Maryland shareholders 278,000 shares of Mason-Dixon stock, said company President Thomas K. Ferguson. The overall value of the deal is $26.3 million, or $13 per share of Bank Maryland stock.Mr. Ferguson said the deal is expected to close by June 30, 1995, pending approval from stockholders and regulators.

Bank Maryland Corp. announced yesterday that Chief Operating Officer H. David Shumpert has been appointed chief executive officer. Mr. Shumpert, who joined the company in August, retains the title of president.The announcement came a year and a month after the last chief executive left the company, whose principal subsidiary is Bank of Maryland. When E. Neil Jacobs ended his one-year term as chief executive in April 1991, Chairman Hildebert F. "Bert" Criste took on the added positions of president and CEO on an interim basis.

Sometimes it pays to jump from the frying pan into the fire, as H. David Shumpert is beginning to learn.In late 1991, after 25 years at Maryland's largest banking company, Mr. Shumpert decided to leave the commercial lending division of MNC Financial Inc., whose real estate loan problems had sent the company into a tailspin. "The bank that I had joined had lost its soul," he recalled this week.Unable to sell his house quickly and move back home to North Carolina to take up teaching, Mr. Shumpert instead took a chance on the small, struggling Towson-based Bank Maryland Corp.

Towson-based Bank Maryland Corp. reported losses yesterday for 1991 and the first quarter of 1992, though each was about half the size of the comparable year-earlier loss.The banking company, which owns the Bank of Maryland, blamed its 1991 loss of $4.5 million, or $2.25 a share, on the weak economy and the cost of its bad loans.But the loss -- reported late because of a legal dispute concerning deposits purchased from another company -- was less than half the 1990 loss of $11 million, or $5.40 a share.

Towson-based Bank Maryland Corp. reported losses yesterday for 1991 and the first quarter of 1992, though each was about half the size of the comparable year-earlier loss.The banking company, which owns the Bank of Maryland, blamed its 1991 loss of $4.5 million, or $2.25 a share, on the weak economy and the cost of its bad loans.But the loss -- reported late because of a legal dispute concerning deposits purchased from another company -- was less than half the 1990 loss of $11 million, or $5.40 a share.

Bank Maryland Corp., the newly created parent of Bank of Maryland, returned to profitability during the fourth quarter last year, reporting slight income as the company rebounded at the end of an otherwise difficult year.The Towson-based company, with 13 branches in the state, said it earned $8,806, or less than 1 cent a share, in contrast to a loss of $1.4 million, or 74 cents a share, during the same period the year before.For all of 1990, Bank Maryland lost nearly $11 million, or $5.40 a share, compared with a loss of $1.3 million, or 70 cents a share, in 1989.

If our largest banks are the "one-percenters" of American capitalism, small business is our 99. And, just as our largest corporations are ruling the roost in Washington, so too do they rule in Annapolis. In fact, Maryland's politics have become so lopsided over the last decade that support for Maryland's small businesses has degenerated into a mere talking point - "backbone of our economy," "the engine of economic growth," etc. Here's Exhibit A. In spite of all the talk from big business groups about taxes and regulation in Maryland, the top issue for small businesses is lending.

Hurricane Irene, already a 120-mph powerhouse with tropical storm winds 230 miles from its center, was turning toward North Carolina's Outer Banks late Wednesday en route to a very wet and potentially dangerous weekend encounter with Maryland's Eastern Shore. Irene will likely produce periods of torrential rain when it arrives, with totals of 4 to 6 inches or more anywhere from Ocean City to Baltimore and the rest of Central and Southern Maryland, forecasters said. A track more to the west could bring high winds and up to a foot of rain to Delmarva and 5 or 6 inches on the Western Shore, some forecasters warned.

The Adams Express Co. elected David D. Weaver as vice president of research for the Baltimore-based closed-end investment company. T. Rowe Price named Steven C. Huber as a senior portfolio specialist in the firm's fixed income division. He formerly was the chief investment officer for the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System. Defense Northrop Grumman Corp. appointed Teri G.

Fueled by a growing number of home and commercial loans, Harbor Bank of Maryland's profit jumped 45 percent in the second quarter, the company said yesterday. The Baltimore-based bank made $451,947, in the quarter that ended June 30, up from $311,647, a year earlier. "I am pleased," said Joseph Haskins Jr., president and chief executive of Harbor Bank. "It has continued a positive trend. Our first two quarters have exceeded our budget expectations." For the first six months of the year, Harbor's earnings rose 34.3 percent to $830,763.

Reaching for a leader with business and political ties, SunTrust Bank has tapped Greater Baltimore Committee President Donald P. Hutchinson to head its Maryland division, the fifth-largest bank in the state with $5.3 billion in deposits. The former Baltimore County executive and veteran of state politics will take over as president and chief executive officer Nov. 1. He will succeed J. Scott Wilfong, who left to take the top job at SunTrust's Atlanta operation. "One of my big challenges ... was my commitment that we would have somebody who would be a high-profile individual who would be very well known to the community in leading the growth of the bank," Wilfong said of the search for his replacement.

A member of a Maryland-based ring that bilked more than $2 million in a credit and identity fraud scheme was sentenced to 51 months in prison yesterday for money laundering, federal prosecutors said.Christopher Omotunde, 31, formerly of Upper Marlboro, helped steal financial information from people around the United States and Canada and then swindled the victims by running up their credit card bills and looting their bank accounts.The ring laundered the money and transferred it to banks in Nigeria, England, Korea and other countries, according to court papers filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

Mason-Dixon Bancshares Inc. yesterday announced that it has made a definitive agreement to pay $25.9 million in cash and stock for Bank Maryland Corp. of Towson.Mason-Dixon, parent of Carroll County Bank and Trust Co., will pay $12.81 in cash or its own stock for each of the 2.02 million shares of Bank Maryland. But the agreement requires that at least 50 percent of the Bank Maryland shareholders take stock.When Mason-Dixon and Bank Maryland announced an agreement in principle Oct. 21, the preliminary arrangement called for Mason-Dixon to pay $26.3 million in cash and stock, about $13 per share.

Edwin F. Hale Sr., the soon-to-be-ex-chairman of Baltimore Bancorp, definitely has his sights on another bank in town. He just can't have his first choice.That choice was Bank Maryland Corp., the Towson-based company whose largest shareholder is its chairman, H. F. "Bert" Criste. Mr. Hale, whose bank is about to be acquired by a New Jersey-based company, said yesterday that his negotiations to buy out Mr. Criste's nearly 20 percent stake in Bank Maryland have fallen through.Mr. Hale said he still would like to have a controlling interest in Bank Maryland, if not an actual management role.

Towson-based Bank of Maryland said yesterday that it will sell five branches on Maryland's Eastern Shore to First Virginia Banks Inc. for an undisclosed price.The branches, which have $87 million in deposits and $59 million in loans, are in Bishopville, Crisfield, Federalsburg, Princess Anne and Salisbury.The sale would reduce Bank of Maryland's total number ofbranches to five from 10 when completed, pending regulatory approval.David Shumpert, Bank of Maryland's president and chief executive, said management wanted to sell branches that were outside of its main banking area, which is Baltimore, Harford and Anne Arundel counties.

H. David Shumpert is a patient man.Like a mechanic rebuilding a classic car that has been set up on blocks, he has painstakingly put Bank of Maryland together, piece by piece, over nearly five years.Now he wants to see it run.Several key hires and a merger with Mason-Dixon Bancshares Inc. last summer have given Bank of Maryland not only the talent, but the money to become a formidable competitor among community banks.Shumpert's mission is single-minded -- expand the bank quickly and profitably by exploiting a niche that he believes the bigger banks can't serve as well: small business lending.